Move 155: Blood on His Hands
The Garlstone Mines--Afternoon, 2 Eleasias 1374 DR
The rush of battle subsided as exhaustion and other realities fell on the badly injured group. The carnage was staggering, with over thirty bodies littering the half of the cavern not blocked off by Aloysius' web. The overwhelming majority of those bodies had been dead before the priests called them to serve, but even so, the volume of blood pooling on the stone floor was nauseating, with no small amount of it having come from various members of the party.Everyone moved quickly to see to the unconscious. Aloysius and Rennirolas were gravely injured, and even with their wounds bound, their breathing remained shallow and their pulses weak. Sadly, it was too late to help Cethyran or Etienne at all. Cyric had lost two of his priests, but his loss had been repaid with the lives of a servant of Sehanine and a servant of Mielikki. Again, Ranchefus had brought death to their number and walked away from it with blood on his hands.
Jana remained kneeling beside Etienne's body, her bloody sword beside her. She kept ripping off strips of cloth from wherever she could find them and clumsily bind his wounds. "Wake up, dammit, wake up," she said, her voice cracking.
"Where in the nine hells did he go!!?" Blacky yelled upon learning that more members of the group had fallen for the last time. He searched the room with his piercing gaze hoping to catch a glimpse of the priest. "Where are you coward!!?"
"I doubt he's gonna answer you and I for one don't feel like fighting right now." Daelen said as he stood up and walked towards the older man, having done what he could for Aloysius with his limited medical skills.
"Now it's too late for two of us, two more might not live to see morning and everyone is badly in need of some rest." he said in a low voice. "We need to get them to safety... how about one of those shacks?"
"No!" Arachne wailed over Cethyran. "You _can't_ be dead! Not so soon! Not you. You're too good to die. Too sure. You can't! And --and you're an elf! Elves are supposed to live forever. And I invited you to join us -- but not to this. You can't --" She hugged the dead elf. "It's not fair," she whimpered.
"Oh gods," Echo muttered as she looked from Arachne to Jana and back again. She struggled to her feet again and walked over to Jana. "You know that's not going to help," she said quietly, putting a hand on Jana's shoulder.
Practicality intruded on Arachne's grief. "No," she whispered. "Yes," she conceded incoherently. "I can't help her now. Her goddess, I could still talk to -- pray." She sounded ambivalent about the idea. "I should ..." She found the moonstone on the silver chain around Ceth's neck. "This belongs to ..." She sighed. "To... Sehanine? I should pray to Sehanine. Later," she added, carefully pulling the chained stone over Ceth's head. "Pray later. Not right now. Too upset now. Angry?" She stared at the moonstone. "I'd say the wrong thing -- the real thing. It wouldn't be good to pray now." She clenched the stone, then, sagging, loosened her grip. "Right now, what can I do to help?" Absently, she dumped the chain over her head, so that it fell around her neck. She wobbled to her feet and stood uncertainly over the dead elf and the rest of the carnage. "Too many bodies," she observed. "Ranch _uses_ bodies. How do we ...?"
Jana let her hands fall. She nodded in resignation, not quite managing to choke back a strangled sob. "Dammit," she whispered, one more sob escaping before she regained control.
Jana stood, shakily, and wiped at her tear-streaked face, succeeding mostly in making it blood-smeared. She looked around and winced at the sight of Ceth's body. Jana picked up her sword, nearly falling in the process, and cleaned it on the nearest dead hostile's clothing and sheathed it. She pointedly did not look in the direction of Etienne's body. "We need to hole up somewhere for a few hours," she said in a flat voice, "then go look for the prisoners." She looked at Arachne. "Can you do that thing and open a door for us to outside, or at least up where we left the dog?"
Arachne looked up at Jana. "A door..." she whispered. "Yes, I could create a door, but -- It wouldn't go far or last long enough, only a minute or so -- if I got it right the first time. And from here to the dog...? I don't know, but I doubt it. I'd need to be closer." She shook her head. "Daelen mentioned the mining shack," she suggested, nodding at the building. "I don't know about that pool, but we're not in a position to be choosy." She sighed. "I suppose we could push a body in and see if anything is attracted." She shook her head. "Bad idea," she muttered.
"He'll answer soon. When he's begging for his miserable worthless life, he'll answer." Blacky replied through clenched teeth. "Let's get into the shack. Someone check those priest and warrior bodies. They may have something we could use to heal these two." Blacky sheathed his sword and picked up Renn, heading for the shack. He put Renn down when he got there. Let me check it out first." Blacky pulled his axe down and stepped into the shack.
Daelen sighed, then moved Aloysius to a less bloody area near the shack. Assuming he didn't hear sounds of battle from inside, he went to the grim duty of looting the bodies of those enemies that had died only recently, even stripping the clothes off.
"We'll need something like a shroud for your friends." he explained offhandedly.
Echo asked, "Arachne, if you rest, will you be able to do healing? Aloysius and Renn are going to need it and the rest of us too, if you're strong enough. I don't know how we'll get out of here otherwise."
Arachne stared at her until it sank in that there wasn't any other magical healing (or the like) available. Then she shuffled over to where Aloysius lay.
"I won't be quick," she warned, "but I guess late will be better than never. And I'll be meditating -- I hope -- but if I seem to've fallen asleep, don't worry about it: Asleep is as good as meditative for this purpose." She sank down beside the wizard and closed her eyes.
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